Another update...from another room

We started this admission out in a regular room and they quickly decided that they wanted to keep a closer eye on the little dude, so they moved him to a room in the IMC unit. He made a good turn around today, so they decided to move him back to a regular room since he was holding his own. We have less monitoring now and a lot fewer distractions, so he should get a good night's sleep. He's still really tired and not wanting to get out of bed at all, but he is definitely perking up. No more fevers today, although his respiratory rate has been a bit elevated at times. As of tonight, he has improved quite a bit and they have been able to lower his fluids to half-maintenance with no issues so far, so I am assuming that they will let us go home tomorrow. At least my chronic headache and tired eyes hope so.

I found out during rounds this morning that Nate had a heart arrhythmia last night, which is essentially an irregular heartbeat, as it was explained to me. They consulted cardiology who said they would just follow-up with us at our upcoming appt in a couple of weeks.

We had 2 second-semester nursing students spend the morning with us learning about how to take care of patients. They spent a good amount of time with Nate and even played with him for quite a while so I could get something to eat. I bring that up because it was hilarious to me how they kept taking turns over and over to listen to Nathan's chest in order to understand what a murmur sounded like. His murmur has been graded a 3-6, meaning that it is essentially very loud with a thrill (vibration), so I guess he was a good candidate to try to learn about the sound these heart conditions make. They would both listen to his chest and then listen to their own chests in order to hear the difference in the normal lub-dub sound to the murmur sound of swish-swish. Being the amazing patient that he is, Nate took all of this in complete stride and with no complaint whatsoever. He has been so very sweet this week.

It has been a fairly smooth admission. Nate didn't respond as quickly as I had expected or hoped, but it is so great to see him finally perking up. Our residents have been superb, as has our attending. And we have enjoyed all the nursing students starting out and about to graduate. They have all gushed over Nate, and he has enjoyed the company of cute girls playing the ipad with him and paying him some attention. But more than anything, I am glad that he seems to be feeling better, and that we will hopefully be home really soon. Yes, I am really thankful for that.